2002-02-24 04:00:00 PDT Salt Lake City -- Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, called the Salt Lake City Olympics "a flop." At tonight's closing ceremonies, Jacques Rogge, the new president of the International Olympic Committee, will undoubtedly pronounce them spectacular.

To break the tie, I'm dubbing them the Eye of the Beholder Games.

In the past, the outcomes from subjectively judged events always were accepted at face value. Griping and carping would follow, but not all-out campaigns to overturn the results. Salt Lake changed that.

The 2002 Winter Olympics became the athletic equivalent of a sexual harassment lawsuit. Instead of "He said, she said," we had "Yuri saw this, Janet saw that."

An Australian referee saw a South Korean skater interfere with American Apolo Anton Ohno and stripped the gold medal from Kim Dong-Sung, handing it over to Ohno.

South Korean athletic officials saw Ohno throw up his hands in feigned shock when he tried to pass Kim and, because of his own miscalculations, couldn't get by. They saw the Australian referee looking out for a fellow English speaker and responding to a crowd that booed furiously after Ohno's aborted pass on the last turn.

The Russians see North American hockey officials discriminating against the finesse style of Eastern Europe. They see referees allowing the United States to bully opponents while the European teams rack up penalties every time they descend to the same level.

The Americans see a fairly tame style of hockey compared with the goonish play in the National Hockey League, and wonder why on Earth the Russians are whining. They didn't get off shots in the first two periods Friday, and they just plain lost.

On one point, though, they all agree, at least so far: The Salt Lake organizers have run the Olympics brilliantly.

LOVELY VENUES

The venues have been lovely, the transportation smooth, the volunteers relentlessly cheery and resourceful. In Atlanta six years ago, the volunteers were friendly but not capable. Here, if there have been problems, someone has always tried to fix them.

I'll admit my perspective may be a bit skewed because reporters have been treated like royalty. Most of us would have left here ecstatic that the buses faithfully ran on schedule and that the computerized information was reliable. But the Salt Lake organizers set up a media center that offers free 15-minute chair massages (tipping expected) and a salon that does facials for $8 to $12. This beholder's eyes still can't believe what they see.

The average spectators may not be this spoiled, but they certainly seem happy. The extensive security has been a hassle, but most of the police and National Guard members have acted like charm-school valedictorians. At the end of the moguls competition, fans found security officers in a huge receiving line at the exit, offering high-fives and thanking people for coming.

Even the Russians acknowledge the success of the Games from this viewpoint. Their chief complaint is with the judging and the slanted coverage of events in the media. Ever since their delegation threatened to boycott last week, the Russians have been tagged as whiners and poor sports.

They were angry that their cross-country skiing star, Larissa Lazutina, was disqualified from an event because her hemoglobin level was too high for her to race safely. Their explanation -- that she was menstruating -- drew understandable scoffs from U.S. media outlets.

SELF-PITY UNSCOLDED

But when an American, bobsledder Todd Hays, complained about doping tests at the start of the Games, his self-pity went largely unscolded. His teammate, Pavle Jovanovic, tested positive for a steroid before the Olympics. Hays tried to argue that athletes couldn't eat a bit of food without fearing disqualification, overlooking that his buddy had already admitted to taking 31 types of dietary supplements, which Olympic committees have repeatedly told athletes to avoid because they are often tainted.

A Russian Jay Leno could have lived off Hays' excuses for a month.

The American version is having a great time mocking Russian complaints. The Russians handed Leno all sorts of material by arguing that Irina Slutskaya, the silver medalist in figure skating, deserved to share the gold with American Sarah Hughes. Slutskaya wasn't just inferior to Hughes in the long program. She was skating in a style more suited to Western tastes, and she still didn't measure up.

Slutskaya is more athletic than classically artistic -- usually the strong suit of Russian skaters. She erred on two of her jumps, removing her one advantage over the rest of the field. Her overall presentation couldn't compensate. All of her American opponents know how to glide over the ice, moving seamlessly from step to step. Slutskaya almost stomps her way across the rink.

If she had skated cleanly, that shortcoming would have been forgiven. She didn't, perhaps because she skated to a piece by Puccini when modern music would have fit her style better.

But figure-skating tradition dictated that she choose classical accompaniment, and she conceded, giving in to the eyes of beholders long before they beheld her in the Salt Lake Olympics.